


Birthday pancakes

by StarrBomb



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Comfort, Everybody Loves Lance, Happy Birthday Lance, Homesickness, allura and Lance have a heart to heart, allura cares for her paladins, everybody got problems, lance loves his team, not a lot of it but it's there, self doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-08 03:23:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11637918
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarrBomb/pseuds/StarrBomb
Summary: After Lance came out of the pod after the last battle, the others have been acting just super weird around him. That is, they never let him out of their sight. And when his birthday day comes around, a heart to heart with Allura lets him know what really happened while he was in the pod.





	Birthday pancakes

**Author's Note:**

> I got this as a prompt from Tumblr, so I hope you guys enjoy it!

When lance fell out of the pod, he thankfully met Hunk’s chest instead of the floor. He wraps his arms loosely around Hunk and just lets the warmth from his friend help get rid of the chill that always seems to cling to his bones whenever he comes out of the healing pod. When he removes his face from Hunk’s chest, he was expecting to see Hunk’s relieved smile and maybe Coran if he wasn’t busy in the control room.

  
Instead he sees the whole team, tears streaming down their faces with some sort of expression that Lance can’t quite place. Hell, he even sees Slav, who avoids the medical bay like the plague. His injury wasn’t that bad was it? Well, he knows it was bad enough that he needed the pod, but he’s never seen the whole team when he comes out, let alone crying.   
“Ummm? Is everything okay gu-” Lance is cut off by the whole team throwing themselves into a group hug, and Lance seems to be the center point. “Uh-did something happen while I was out? I’m okay now guys, you don’t need to squeeze the life outta me.” He’s not sure how long they stay like that, well long enough for them to move their hug to the floor, but Lance really smelled and he really had to use the bathroom, so with some poking and prodding the team finally let him loose from their arms.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
Okay, this is just starting to get super weird.   
After the huge hug fest, Lance was sure that things would go back to normal. Everyone would just sort of forget about him and he can go about the castle doing his own things. Sure, normal doesn’t mean it it’s healthy, but Lance has been able to deal with his own issues while helping the others as much as he can. His anxiety doesn’t help anyone, and their problems are more important; Shiro is suffering from PTSD, no matter how much he tries to deny it, Keith is having an identity crisis that can really scramble his brain if he thinks to much about it, Pidge is trying to find her brother and father, and Allura and Coran are still mourning over the lost of their entire civilization. Compared to all of them, Lance’s own self esteem issues and anxiety doesn’t reach the same level of need as the others. Sure, sometimes it can so overwhelming that he hides away from everyone to try and deal with it himself, but Hunk usually finds him, bless his soul, and helps Lance feel a little bit better about himself by getting him to help out with lunch or dinner, and before anyone else can the see the awful mess he feels like he is, he slaps on a smile and just lets the others enjoy themselves. Helping his team is way more important to him than trying to deal with his own problems.

  
But it seems that now, whenever the others even think that Lance is going off on his own, they’ll scramble to try and find something to do with Lance. It was nice the first few days, being able to spend quality time with each of his teammates, helping Pidge with her projects and getting her to talk about her family more (she deserves to remember all the good times every now and then.) or to go on patrols with Shiro before bed (Lance loves being able to help Shiro fall asleep better, he’s a wiz at getting people to fall asleep. Even though it isn’t always a good thing.) hell, even being able to go around or two with Keith is nice (Lance knows that Keith can sort out his thoughts better when he’s moving around a lot, so he doesn’t mind getting his butt handed to him now and then.)

  
But it doesn’t stop. Instead they seem to be trying so much harder to find something todo with him, to not let him be alone. And yeah he’s a social butterfly by heart, but even Lance needs some time away. If not, his mask will crack sooner or later, and he doesn’t want the team to see him like that. They already have so much on their plates already. He doesn’t want to make them worry more.

  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  
Today just wasn’t going to be a good day.

At all.

He woke up in the middle of the night from an awful nightmare about not being enough to save his friends, his family, his planet. It a like he’ll never be enough. No. No Lance, don’t think about it. Not today.                             He checks his phone to see what day it would be on earth, a habit he’s picked up awhile ago, and….wow. Today’s his birthday. How has it already gotten around to his birthday? What would his family be doing right now? Do they even know the truth? Probably not, considering the galaxy garrison. Do they think he’s missing? Are they just going to wait around, hoping that he’ll come home?

  
Lance knows that he isn’t going to fall back asleep now that all of those thoughts are spinning around in his head, but he still lies on his bed, trying to quell the bubbling homesickness. But it only seems to make his self doubt worse with each hour that he lays there, trying to keep back the tears that are threatening to spill. He can’t break down. Not today. Today just needs to be a normal day like any other.

  
Don’t break down lance. 

Don’t break down.

  
Lance repeats those two sentences in his head like a mantra, finally getting his body to cooperate with him and move out of the bed. He goes through his normal morning routine, albeit much slower, and heads out of his room, even bough he knows it’ll still be hours before anyone will be up and moving about. He can take this moment of solidarity to try and get his emotions under control, to get some kick in his step.

  
Lance walks around the castle, the same dread and worrying thoughts circling around and around in his head. He doesn’t know how but he ends up at the Main hall, the large doors closed to keep out the empty and death bringing thing known as space. He notices some odd carvings on the side of the door that he hasn’t noticed before, and upon closer inspection he realizes that the entire border is covered in these carvings. While simplistic, they are still beautiful to look at.

  
“Lance?”

  
Lance jumps at the sudden voice, whirling around to see Allura, still in her nightgown and robe, standing at the top of the stairs. She glides down them as if it wasn’t some hundreds of steps and soon ends up right beside Lance in front of the door.

  
“Princess…” god, his voice sounded awful. It’s all scratchy and just so raw with the emotions he’s trying to hold back. He clears his throat and tries again, “I didn’t think I was going to see anyone this early.”

  
“I thought the same. I especially wasn’t expecting to see you til much later.”

  
Lance nods, wishing that he could just fall back asleep and just forget about the rest of the world. But the nightmare still too fresh in his mind for him to even consider trying again.

  
“Yeah, I…uh, wanted to get a good start on the day?” Lance knows it doesn’t sound convincing, and by the look Allura is giving him, she didn’t buy it. Eager to try and change the subject before she asks anything deeper, Lance turns back around and gestures to the doors “I was looking at these carvings. They’re really beautiful, I was wondering what they’re showing?”

  
Allura gives him another look of 'our-conversation-isn’t-over-yet', but concedes and after both of them took a seat on the marble floor, she goes on to explain that the carvings depict the legacy of each king of Althea since the beginning. Some showed the peace and prosperity that Allura has spoke of before, while others show the downside to any great kingdom; famine, war, and from the looks of it, there was even a depiction of one king being overthrown by the people. “Just because they are a king, doesn’t mean that they are a good king.” Lance comments, remembering the history lessons back from middle school and high school. They sit in a thick silence, both of them wanting to ask questions to the other, yet unsure if it is the right moment.

  
“Lance…”

  
Okay, so maybe it was only Lance who was trying to figure out when was the right time to talk.

  
“Why are so sad? I know that being out here, in the middle of a war and far away from home, it’s tough on all of you. But you always seem to help cheer the others up, you always seem to have a smile in your eyes. Except today….why? Is something the matter?”

  
Lance lets out a long sigh, he knew this question was coming the moment the princess had come down the stairs, he didn’t have the energy to try and worm his way out of this.

  
“Today’s my birthday….”

  
Allura’s eyes shimmer with realization as it dawns on her.

  
“Oh. happy birthday Lance, I hadn’t realized that-”

  
“It’s okay princess, you don’t need to apologize, you didn’t know. The team doesn’t even know. Well maybe Hunk, but I’m sure if he’s been keeping track of earth days.”

  
Allura leans into Lance, trying to give some comfort to her blue paladin.

“Well, I am sure that the others would be happy to know today is a day of celebration. Is there anything that you wish to do to celebrate this occasion?”

  
Lance doesn’t want to make his team feel bad for not knowing his birthday, and he just can’t bring himself to want a party, unsure if he’ll be able to keep his mask up for that long (or at all) by then he remembers something that his family would always do.

  
“When I was much younger, my family was in a tight spot. We couldn’t always do what we wanted to do for our birthdays, sometimes we couldn’t even have a cake. but….we always had pancakes whenever it was someone’s birthday. It’s silly, but we always knew that even if we couldn’t celebrate much, we could at least enjoy ourselves with a stack of pancakes.” Lance can’t help the sad smile that grows on his face, remembering all the times they would sing happy birthday to his siblings over a pile of pancakes.

  
“Well then, I think we can do that. Let us go make the pancakes!”

  
“And by ‘we’ you mean Hunk, right?”

Lance quips, seeing how Allura gets flustered at the obvious truth. Lance chuckles at Allura trying to figure out the right thing to say. “Can we just….stay here a little longer. I’m not really ready to face the universe just yet.” Lance asks, sure that Allura will decline and make a bee line to Hunk’s room. But instead she merely smiles and nods her head, letting the silence wrap around them once again. But Lance still has his question, and he hopes that he can get some sort of answer from Allura.

  
“Allura…”

  
“Yes Lance?”

  
“…why is everyone being so….so….”

  
Lance tries to think of the word, pulling up a huge fat blank in his head.

  
“So adamant to not letting you be by yourself?”

  
“Yeah.”

  
Allura looks at Lance before looking back up at the door, obviously trying to figure out the best way to explain their friends behavior.

  
“When you were in the pod….everyone was pretty worried. It was the third time you’ve been in it this week, and we were worried sick about why you were always putting yourself in harms way.”

  
“I just want to-” Allura puts her finger to Lance’s lips, silencing him mid sentence. Allura continues on with her explanation.

  
“That was when Slav entered the medical bay, which pretty much surprised all of us. He was wondering how you were doing and seemed to be relieved to see that you were healing. He started to ramble on and on about how in other realities, you were so depressed that you didn’t care anymore or how you ended up in Galra hands to try and save to others, and then Hunk told us about how you’ve been struggling with homesickness and self doubt. Slav went on to talk about how in other universes, you would even die because you didn’t think you were important to us or voltron. It was a very agonizing eye opener, and I guess we’ve been trying to show you that we need you and that your important to us. Without you, I’m pretty sure everyone here would just fall apart.”

  
Lance can see the tears spilling down her cheeks, and can feel his own plopping off of his chin. He pulls Allura into a hug, one that she eagerly returns with as much need of comfort as Lance.

  
“Promise me Lance….promise me that if your ever feeling inadequate or if your struggling with your anxiety or with homesickness…don’t hide it from us. We love you, and we want to see you. All of you.”

At the last sentence, Allura tightens her grip around Lance’s chest just enough to make her point.

  
Lance isn’t sure if he can promise that…..but he can try.

  
“I’ll try. Now come on, lets go and get Hunk and make some pancakes, yeah?” Lance says with a watery laugh.

The two help each other get off the cold floor and make their way to hopefully a bit of a better day.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments and kudos are always welcomed with goofy grins and open arms!!!


End file.
